If there was a new non-faction that could attack any of the existing factions, would you play it?

Crown

EDIT (Clarification in the first sentence): The idea is for a non-faction group that would be of a mercenary, bandit, or perhaps imperial background. Note that when such a group is made, it would not be part of any of the three existing factions, and would be able to attack any of them. Such a group would also be able to attack other such groups, so this is NOT a 4th faction.

Players would no longer have Yellow / Blue / Red colours, and instead perhaps be Brown or Black (something that isn't on the spectrum of primary colours).

As a member of this non-faction, you would be able to attack anyone in Cyrodiil who was not in your group, be it AD, DC, EP, or other non-faction players and groups.

Players of any faction could temporarily give up their allegiance to Queen/King/Colour/Whatever and join the group that would let them attack anyone (including their own colour) by queuing into Cyrodiil as such. In order to fight again for their faction, they would have to re-queue to the campaign.

For those dedicated to the slaughter of everyone and wanting to (mostly) permanently abandon their faction, once every so often (perhaps a 30 day cool down), a player would be able to leave or re-join their faction. I believe that players should be able to change to other factions on such a cool down, though that's outside the scope of this poll.

Players queuing into a campaign as non-faction would need a starting point. I suggest something like one of the IC entrances, or perhaps one of the bandit camp areas in different parts of the map.

Keeps, outposts, resources, and districts could be taken by this non-faction, though being as different non-faction groups would be able to attack each other, there's some theory work that needs to be done in order to figure out how the guards would work (unless we just assume that on the code side each group that is formed gets a temporary value assigned to them. In this case, each group would be like their own temporary new faction for as long as the group existed.

Players would make AP, but it would not contribute to any leader board (or perhaps a non-faction leader board could be created).

The chances of a non-faction associated player being emperor (claiming all 6 keeps) would be minimal (approaching zero) outside of a dead PvDoor campaign.

Ackwalan

So you want a grief'er faction. No thanks.

Darkestnght

I would retain my allegiance to my colour, though I would join non-faction groups at times.

Sounds interesting. I am up for a change to PvP it can be very stale at times. When I am in Cyrodii it is pretty much the same thing but a different day. Something to mix it up a bit would be welcome to me.

Didgerion

Other - explain in your response.

Creating the 4th color will automatically create the 4-th alliance - even if the players will be allowed to attack each other in it- they won't (usually).

Ghostbane

Other - explain in your response.

#GRoMD

Storymaster

Fah, just give me a PVE instance of Cyrodiil please.

Prince_of_all_Pugs

I love you to see a Zerg mutiny by half its members turning factionless. The bloodshed would be so epic!

asneakybanana

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

Didgerion wrote: »

Creating the 4th color will automatically create the 4-th alliance - even if the players will be allowed to attack each other in it- they won't (usually).

If there was a 4th faction I would attack everything that moves. Do you know how much fun it would be to be able to attack everyone on your faction that gets on your nerves? No matter what they did or where they went you would be able to kill those buggers.

Solariken

In a second! I would never play for one of the existing factions again!

Although I would personally LOVE this feature and probably use it exclusively, I think the best incentives should still encourage sticking to the 3 primary factions. Therefore let me offer a few thoughts:

1) This non-faction should be group based, existing as war bands that are hostile to all other non-faction groups. This limits the size of your personal non-faction scope to 24 players. If you encounter a non-faction player in the wild however you can still invite to group and they become friendly.

2) AP gains handicap - I suggest -33%

3) No end of campaign gear rewards.

technohic

Other - explain in your response.

I kind of like it. Think the extra faction should not be able to claim keeps although could damage them and raid for resources and gold.

Taking it further

Also would be ok if you could be a "civilian" much like you see in towns, farms, lumber-mils, and mines, even have you be a towns person within the keeps sort of like NPCs are now. Maybe even have a lot of resource nodes in those areas and you flip to be attackable by any faction that is not controlling it at the time, just like the NPCs, You naturally could then be like a militia when your "home" is under attack. Maybe being flipped causes resources to be depleted temporarily to provide incentives. At that point, you 4th faction becomes kind of like marauders. Marauders who raid would then be subject to bounties and bounty hunters boards suddenly take on a meaning.

Basically; make Cyrodiil a fully functioning open PVP world complete with law abiding citizens, bandits, and of course the 3 army war.

Solariken

In a second! I would never play for one of the existing factions again!

Haha yeah as @technohic suggested a non-hostile civilian mode would be a nice addition to appease a large group of players who otherwise are afraid of PvP but still want to do the quests and skyshards etc.

technohic

Other - explain in your response.

Solariken wrote: »

Haha yeah as @technohic suggested a non-hostile civilian mode would be a nice addition to appease a large group of players who otherwise are afraid of PvP but still want to do the quests and skyshards etc.

Well; they would be attack-able and able to attack anyone who was not in the faction that currently controlled their home town/resource/keep with what I had in mind, so not sure that would help them.

Soris

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

A pirate faction then? Smugglers, bandits, outlaws and all those criminals. It fits the theme of TES, and even ESO with the outlaws refugees in cities.

Great idea but it should have 30/7 day timer or huge amount ap to go back. Othervise it will be abused for sure.

Zer0oo

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

Only if they limit the grp size to 8 or less.

DeadlyRecluse

Other - explain in your response.

I've never heard a plan for a 4th faction or factionless option that hasn't lead me to believe it would quickly become the most populated of the 4 factions. Plus the mechanics of cyrodiil just don't lend themselves to it. If my factionless group takes a resource, do the NPCs aggro other factionless groups? What about that rare factionless emp throning? What about IC spawns?

I think it's a very appealing idea, because everyone fancies that their group is the One True Pvp Group just out there for good fights, but I just don't see it going well.

Soris

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

Hostile non faction npcs could be allied with this new faction and add couple of flags to those quest places (white icons on map)
And add a special token for killing these pirate players, tokens to buy every kind of gear/consumables in game. So people will willing to hunt outlaws and so you can divide zergs more to those places and will create less lag. Welcome to full justice system.

/why not?

Great idea again @Crown You have my full support.

Agrippa_Invisus

I think that this is a dumb idea and Crown should shut the heck up.

Because there wasn't a kinder version of 'This is a non-functional idea and should not be implemented' I selected the option I did.

You can't have an even number of factions. This leads to either stagnation as the inevitable 2v2 battlelines get drawn, complete domination / annihilation when one faction gets 3v1ed. It's already rough enough with a full on double team.

As the map is drawn now, once one faction is reduced far enough back (usually by the time they're back in their tri keeps) there's enough border space shared between the other two that the third is naturally let back into the game as the two temporary allies degenerate into infighting. The game's designed to be like this so one faction isn't just destroyed constantly.

In a four way scenario the map will naturally lend itself more towards a square, putting one faction into each corner. Should one of those factions turn out to be weak or ineffectual you'll find the two factions to each side able to push freely in either directly as they will never border each other until the map reaches a near 50/50 split and by that point you have TWO factions that are out for the count. And out of four factions (instead of just three), there will be one that's weaker than the other three, likely the newest.

The other two options are:

a) Deadlock in a 2v2 split that barely moves.
b) One faction getting destroyed. Whichever one has cheesed off the other three enough to get everyone to dogpile (even bypassing natural borders). In this situation, there's almost no chance of recover when a single faction is about 1/4th of the pop instead of 1/3rd.

Grimlok_S

Storymaster wrote: »

Fah, just give me a PVE instance of Cyrodiil please.

Almalexia.. Kastav.. Xarxes..

PvDoor to your heart's content!

Crown

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

You can't have an even number of factions.

@Agrippa_Invisus These non-faction players wouldn't be considered a 4th faction, as only the members of a given group would be able to work together. Two non-faction groups could attack each other!

Irylia

In a second! I would never play for one of the existing factions again!

Damn. Almost looks like something I’ve said multiple times on forums.

More people should push this idea as it would shake pvp up.
A new cyrodiil map would also be nice

IxSTALKERxI

Never! I am eternally loyal to the Dominion!

There would have to be a population cap on the factionless. A maximum of 15-25% of the server's total population. Otherwise cyrodiil would turn into chaos. There would have to be some kind of drawback to, otherwise everyone will want to be factionless and no one would care about the campaign or defending important keeps etc they'd just be waiting in queue to become factionless. Perhaps you earn 0 AP while factionless or something and are just in it for the fights lol. Oh and factionless players are worth twice as much AP when you kill them.

Telel

Never! I am eternally loyal to the Dominion!

You mean team purple isn't the game's real fourth faction?

zyk

I think this would take a lot of work to properly integrate into existing AvA gameplay. If not done properly, it would be a disaster.

The FFA team would disproportionately be attractive to enthusiasts and therefore would draw those players away from existing factions. You'd have the Kodis, Dracs, Animosities, etc all on that side. It would not be attractive to players who can't hold their own and therefore unappealing to casual players. The resulting scenario would be team enthusiast community vs 3 factions of casuals. Yawn.

I would prefer an alternate campaign with no factions and a free for all ruleset.

Gilvoth

In a second! I would never play for one of the existing factions again!

they were told during beta and at launch to never use factions.
factions should never have existed.

Autumnhart

In a second! I would never play for one of the existing factions again!

Might even help with balance if we were unable to target/attack the faction in last place, or any faction with no scrolls.

The_Protagonist

Other - explain in your response.

We already have that, they are called npc monsters

pachycephalo

Other - explain in your response.

FREEDOM FOR ARGONIA!!

Sanct16

In a second! I would never play for one of the existing factions again!

even tho i would play it, I feel its important to point out that this idea would be horrible if implemented.

Joy_Division

An interesting idea, though I agree with the sentiment there should be an inherent disadvantage because it's an option that's likely to attract the PvP diehards.

MipMip

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

I love the idea of allegiance only to my guild / group, and not to a faction!

Lakeh

I don't really care about the campaign and just want good fights. This is a great idea!

yes